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Ah me, those days of yore when the rich family on the block owned a castle and the best beer in town was mead. How the honest peasant toiled for the greedy land owner and his manorial family. How the witch finder general picked on the most interesting-looking women and burnt them at the stake. How people died from the plague and grew warts in very odd places. They didn't call them the Dark Ages for nothing, you know.

Times have changed (just a tad) and levels of home ownership are a lot higher (marginally) but we still enjoy a spot of siege-busting and some peasant oppression. Castle bashing is what Rampart is all about. The idea is simply to defeat an invading armada of ships by cannoning the woodlice out of them. Rampart is an odd mixture of high speed strategy and plain old fashioned zapping. You can play against either your ST or your ST and another person. The best fun is definitely to be had playing against someone else since the ST's aim is deadly accurate and another human player means more targets for your ST.

It's also worth pointing out at this point that Rampart is for 1MByte machines, so if you've only got 0.5MByte of memory you should either get upgraded, or do without this tasty arcade game.

Once you have decided whether you're a veteran player or a beginner, you get to choose your castle. Depending on the level you're on, there are between four and six castles to choose from. Some of these are better strategically for hitting your opponent, while others are better for destroying the invading armada; you have to decide whether you want to destroy your human opponent or your ST's ships. It's usually the human opponent, of course.

With the tricky business of castle choice out of the way, it's about time to position your armaments. These come in the form of cannons which you position within your castle walls. Initially you've only got three, but as the game progresses you can fill the entire floor space of the castle with them. Once all your heavy cannons are placed, you can start the battle.

After the sampled command "Fire" you move your cursor over the enemy and fire as many times as you've got cannons. You can't fire again until the cannonballs hit their target. What's more, you have to pre-judge the position of ships; cannonballs aren't the quickest munition ever and they take a second or two to hit the target. After 20 seconds, the round finishes and you commence the task of rebuilding your battered castle. This is performed by moving a series of blocks in a Tetris-like manner. If you don't manage to completely encircle your castle within 20 seconds, you lose a life.

Rampart's a medieval blast. The gameplay isn't enormously taxing on the grey cells, but this is a hugely engaging game with a long, long shelf life. Rampart is proof positive that it's the simple concepts which win through; it's precisely because the gameplay's a doddle that you're likely to keep returning to the game again and again. Of course, that's not to say that there's no skill involved in learning the game; judging the shots and prioritising your targets does take a fair amount of practice.

You can't fault the graphics or sound within the game. There are some excellent, clear samples and great polished graphics. The whole game has been cheerfully designed so as not to hinder the gameplay, while the sergeant who commands you to fire and cease-fire operates like some kind of mad old referee.

There's absolutely not a shred of doubt about it, Rampart's a great little game. Grab a friend, place a few potatoes around the place, cackle a bit, wear a sack and blow the hell out of each other's castle. It's a Dark Age hoot in a New Age suit. Hurrah!